


Toll the mountain

by BeBunny



Category: The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - All Fandoms
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Sex, Attempted Rape, Bonding, Knotting, Light Bondage, M/M, Omega Verse, Phil Coulson is a BAMF, Rape/Non-con Elements, Soul Bond, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-06-13
Packaged: 2017-11-07 15:54:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/432879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeBunny/pseuds/BeBunny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Yeah, that’s what I said. I hate to think what hell that stuff is wreaking on his system right now, it’s not designed to work with Beta physiology. It’s not going to do any permanent damage of course, but it doesn’t sound comfortable in the meantime.”</i>
</p><p>  <i>“He’s three months in on this posting and he takes it now?” Phil says, working around a point. It doesn’t taste good in his mouth. “He didn’t bring it, so where did he get it?”</i></p><p>  <i>“That’s the million dollar question isn’t it.” Dr Matthews says. “My bet is, we’ve got an Omega on site somewhere, without their meds.”</i></p><p> <br/>Clint has been suppressing for as long as he can remember. It's no big deal, he has it under control. It's just that when he was a kid there wasn't anyone around to tell him how this was supposed to go, with nowhere safe to let go and deal with the heat it was easier to ignore it altogether. It's always possible to get hold of suppressants on the street. He's got dealers on speed dial and a routine. In fact, he's gotten so good at this he has everyone convinced he's a Beta with an attitude problem, including Phil Coulson. </p><p>But it all goes to shit when some dickwad steals his pills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please note there is a scene of non-graphic attempted rape in this fic. There are also parallels to substance/medication abuse and misuse going on. 
> 
> However, Phil Coulson is a BAMF and doesn't put up with that shit.
> 
> ~*~
> 
> Thank you so much to Keeby and my twitter peeps, harlots included for listening to me gripe about this, it's turned out way longer than I intended and there are more feels that I really expected to come out of it too.

Days tend to blur together when you’re cut off from civilisation. Holed up here in a hide you had better hope to hell is camouflaged well against the mountain side; it can get more than a little claustrophobic. He tries to unpack methodically and remain collected enough to map out an agenda, something of a to do list, before he really starts craving a fresh donut and good Italian coffee. There’s a tinny patter on the shell of the room as it starts to rain. 

Phil isn’t really sure what contributed most to the mess on Seventh, other than let Clint take a shortcut and engage the emerald triad directly. It would have been a good, solid strategy if Doom’s explosion over the harbour hadn’t attracted so much attention, and that wasn’t even related. He could blame Stark all he liked, but it was just bad luck. The whole day had been a clusterfuck from start to finish and it had _finished_ with Fury assigning them two weeks detail on Operation Stonewall. 

It’s nothing more than a good opportunity for him to get up to speed on several back burner projects. A pile of yellow folders is stacked on his pillow for want of a more appropriate surface and it serves to remind him just how lax he has been with less pressing deadlines. He knows Steve will be the one to pick up the slack in his absence, there are protocols and not all the Avengers respect them. He revels in the silence briefly, it’s nice not to hear the obnoxious bleating of a TV no one is really watching or arguments about breakfast cereal brands. Ordinarily the freakishly warped mundanity of daily life at the tower is a mark of success of sorts, at least he isn’t kneeling in the mud on some stake out or in endless undercover op strategy meetings any more. The Avengers are hardly subtle, in public or otherwise. That’s not to say he doesn’t appreciate a vacation occasionally. Fury knows him perhaps a little too well. The isolation of Stonewall itself isn’t his punishment; nope, that’s being cooped up for two weeks with an dangerously bored Clint. 

The agents that populate this base are all loners of one sort or another. Some specifically requested the assignment, some have things they need to _disappear_ from and others are working off some kind of career debt. There is an odd sort of quiet community here, though it isn’t cheerful. The whole freezing, iron riveted complex feels like little more than a cage, too barren and sparse for comfort. They have one function, to watch the movements and monitor communications of Hydra in the area. To describe Stonewall as covert is like saying the Pope is religious, less than twenty miles away sits one of the biggest known super-bases of Hydra’s weapons division. 

His room is tiny, but private. There is a cracked mirror in the little cubby en-suite and a floor to ceiling locker that clangs sadly when he closes the door on his three identical suits. 

He has been assigned an office appropriate to his rank at the other end of the complex, the same one he always inhabits when he’s up here. It is ever sparse, just like everything else, but it does have a certain nostalgic charm. Last time he had brought a few arty photos and hung them on the wall opposite the door. They’re a little worse for wear now, dusty and neglected but someone else has added a fake fern on top of the filing cabinet and there’s a pack of gum in the drawer under the desk. Small comforts. 

There isn’t a great deal for him to _do_ here. Since it’s an active operation, albeit a long term one with significant investment, it already has a more than capable manager. Although Agent Harker is a man given to cryptic brevity, he is crystal clear when it comes to boundaries. So Phil doesn’t interfere with the running of the operation and Harker stays off his back. He can’t make the same promises for Barton, who is generally less given to brevity and not even remotely aware of most boundaries. 

 

~*~

 

The barracks aren’t quite as bad as the rumours had made out but they’re pretty fucking close. Clint can’t fault the designer for going with a minimalist style but honestly, whoever decided to ‘carpet’ the floor with bare steel was just plain cruel. 

There are twenty beds in this room, only six of them claimed. The ones that show signs of habitation, however temporary are several cots apart. They are likely short term postings, people still holding a grudge for something that went to shit in the field and need a little ‘cooling off’. There’s two beds on the far wall that are claimed side by side. Two agents shouldering responsibility? Something like that for sure, they clearly know each other. 

Most agents who have a permanent or near as dammit posting to Stonewall have their own room, windowless and as soulless as the rest of the building, but private at least. There’s nowhere near a full contingent of staff here at the moment, barely sixty agents and several full time catering or administration staff all told. Coulson, of course, gets one of the guest suites. Which Clint knows even has a private bathroom. 

He shrugs his bag from off his shoulder and dumps it on his chosen cot, it’s in the corner, a good three beds from the nearest claim. There’s a basic bedside cabinet in which he stows his battered StarkPad and a couple of dogeared paperbacks. His wash kit follows and he digs out an unmarked brown bottle before he’s done, padding up the aisle between the beds to the bathroom. He tips out a couple of the triangular yellow pills into his hand and knocks them back with a swig from the faucet. They’re bitter on his tongue, but he’s so used to it now he barely registers the taste. 

He stashes the bottle out of sight behind the paperbacks and nudges the door of the cabinet closed with his toe. Already he’s sizing up the available access and escape points. There are air ducts running through the entire facility. He had begged a blueprint from Coulson as reading material on the flight over. No other handler would likely have indulged his paranoia, but Coulson at least has been on the receiving end of bad planning. He’s also seen what Clint is capable of when he’s backed into a corner and that has earned him just a little more leniency in the past. 

His footsteps echo, tinny and cold on the plating. There’s no one around and when he steps out into the corridor, letting the door swing shut behind him. The only glimpses of the outside world are through oddly spaced acrylic light plates in the walls. Startlingly bright sunlight and pale mountainside in stark contrast to the steel chambers of Stonewall. 

The corridors are eerily quiet as he makes his way through the base. He can hear the whistle of the wind through the ventilation system and the rain on the cracked windows but thats all. The overall effect is quite lonely. He surprises himself with a pang of homesickness for the tower. Maybe he’ll call Natasha later, or he could just bug Coulson now. 

~*~


	2. Chapter 2

It isn’t quite cold enough for his breath to condense, but it sure feels like it should be. Phil knows from experience that he will adjust to the temperature in a couple of days, so he fights the urge to pull his parker on over his suit and decides to go for a walk around the complex in the hopes it will get his circulation moving. 

He winds up in the mess hall of all places. It’s as cheery as the rest of the base, in that it feels like the inside of a shipping container, but it does at least have one hell of a view. Overhead a great curving acrylic ceiling window looks backwards up the mountain. It’s designed to re-route falling snow in the case of an avalanche but the overall effect makes it look like you’re viewing the mountainside from the bottom of a fish tank. 

“It’s something, isn’t it?” 

Phil glances down to see Harker looking up from below the balcony walkway. He nods in response, they’ve had this conversation before, but there’s only so much to talk about on such a remote posting. Easy enough to fall into patterns unlikely to rub anyone up the wrong way or cause offence. 

“Sure is.” He agrees, and Harker is already making his way up the stairs to join him. 

“What did you do this time?” He laughs. There’s no malice in the question, not really, but Phil still bristles at it anyway. The suggestion that he and his team are less than brutally effective grates, they are well oiled, but sometimes things get out of hand. Harker has lost touch with the real world, it’s hard to remember that sometimes. 

“Nothing important.” He says and Harker has the good sense to leave it be. 

“Not much has been going on here.” The manager says unbidden, “We’ve had a staff turnover, so there’s a lot of training to get out of the way, there have been some petty territory disputes, nothing too drastic.” 

“You have a bad mix?” Phil says. They can settle on this subject, Harker is at home on his own turf and less inclined to pry. 

“We did have a great one, mostly Betas, one or two that liked to throw their weight around, nothing we couldn’t handle. But then there was a shake up and suddenly there were too many big fish in our little pond.”

Phil shakes his head in sympathy, the balance can be tough to get right. This isn’t suburbia or the big city where relationships and dynamics are free to grow out of whatever bonds people develop between themselves.

The kind of people attracted to agencies like SHIELD, especially to postings like this one are hardly known for their social finesse and even tempers. Not like Natasha, who with the help of scent suppressants can pull off anything from polite Omega to authoritative Alpha and anything in between with little trouble. In contrast to Stonewall, Stark tower - the model of city life, is populated with efficient Betas and Omegas, even the odd Alpha whom Tony trusts and there’s never a concern there. He shrugs off his sympathetic unease “Settling down?”

“Mostly, I just wish Fury and the other powers that be would stop treating this base like the goddamn time out room you know?” 

Phil makes a mental note to bring it up when he gets home, Harker looks exhausted and he suspects he’s not getting the full story here. “Have you tried offering sedations? Suppressants?” 

“Nah, I’m not gonna press that shit on agents who just need to let off steam unless they ask for it, it’s nothing too drastic. We did have an unannounced, unmated Omega transfered as part of the engineering detail, I had to do a turn about. I got her shipped out on the next transport down the mountain, I can’t take that kind of risk here.” 

Phil nods thoughtfully, he can only imagine how that might have turned out for the Omega if no one had noticed. “You’re pretty isolated, could have been messy.” 

“You’re telling me, I have enough trouble with posturing idiots without adding pressure to that particular can. Christ.” Harker inclines his head down to the mess hall where twenty or so of the base’s inhabitants are hunched over cafeteria trays. 

Two scruffy agents are engaging in a heated debate, gesturing with their sporks at a tv screen mounted on the wall nearby. The sound is muted and Phil can’t hear particulars but game scores filter up the screen, flashing team colours and symbols alongside victories. The two of them jostle for space on the table and argue, the others around them seem to flinch out of their way leaving a gap. They pause and glare menacingly when a newcomer slides effortlessly into place beside them.

Phil suppresses a groan when he realises it’s Barton.

~*~

Clint purposefully doesn’t look up as he sits down at the table, tray in hand. The two agents he interrupted are both bristling with irritation and something like indignation. He sniffs surreptitiously; he can’t get a handle on them, too many other distractions, could be he’s messing with Alphas, the others certainly seem cowed enough. He floods with adrenaline as he lifts a spork to his mouth, sloppy mashed potatoes sliding back onto the plate. It’s thrilling to feel how dangerous this game is, every time he plays it. 

“That seat’s taken.” One of them says. It’s a thinly veiled threat and one hell of a cocky move, this guy doesn’t know the first thing about Clint, not that Clint knows anything about this dickwad either. He counts on the little yellow pills to mask his scent, confuse others into misjudging him, but he’s always made a habit of relying on that just a little too much. If he cared he’d consider it a character flaw.

He shrugs, still not looking up and chews cardboard chicken and peas. The man on his left, a weedy guy with too much gel in his hair shuffles away from them along the bench. A red headed girl across the table raises an eyebrow but says nothing. 

“You deaf?” The other sports fan says, leaning in to Clint like he’s eyeing up back door merchandise. 

“Nope.” Clint says, but he doesn’t elaborate. 

The blond one pushes away his tray and stands, there’s menace rolling off him in waves, it’s fucking with Clint’s senses and making it hard to concentrate. Every fibre of Clint’s body is priming for fight or flight, but he focuses his breathing, the methodical, mechanical motion of lifting mouthfuls from the plate. There’s a mark here, no living quarry but a state of mind. He smiles a little as the world drops away and he can hear only the rushing of blood in his ears. 

He barely registers the sudden bark of a superior officer or the men’s muted grumbling as they withdraw, leaving their trays on the table. 

“Hey,” one of the other agents at the table hisses at him. “Are you crazy?” 

Clint looks at him, the guy looks pretty shaken and he thinks maybe he underestimated the situation. It’s a sobering thought, despite the matching uniforms and the battered veneer of team spirit that coats these remote bases Clint is well aware he’s back to taking risks. They’re all singing from the same song sheet, it’s just that some people like to change the lyrics. 

“Don’t fret sweetheart.” He says into his cracked mug of coffee. 

“That’s Green and Burns,” The guys says anyway. “They’re fucked up man, don’t mess with them.” 

Clint stands and balances the empty mug on top of the tray, he stacks his on top of the two abandoned ones and picks up the whole lot together. He looks up to see Coulson glaring at him over the railing of the balcony and he nearly flinches. Not off to a good start. _You made a promise._ Well, he’d done worse.

“They don’t hold a monopoly on fucked up.” Clint says quietly as he turns to place the trays on a collection cart. He doesn’t care if the guy heard him or not. 

There’s a chance he could catch up to Coulson if he makes a beeline straight for him, maybe apologise, but he’s already turning away. Clint had made a promise on the flight over, swearing to keep a lid on his ‘behaviour’ while they were on this assignment. There was little Clint would do to openly jeopardise an active operation and they both knew it, not that there was much harm he could do out here if there was. The trouble was that Clint tended to self sabotage if left to his own devices. He doesn’t know whether to read disappointment in the way Coulson’s shoulders are drooping, or if he’s imagining it. He writes it off to a guilty conscience throwing his perspective off, but he knows it might be better to avoid Coulson for a couple of days all the same. 

~*~


	3. Chapter 3

There is a certain amount of sacrifice that comes from being damn good at what he does. He usually doesn’t mind the pressure or the frankly hilarious hours. Working directly with the Avengers initiative is a challenge in all the right ways. Sure, sometimes it feels like herding stoned cats and there’s a huge hole where his ability to relax used to be, but honestly he enjoys it. 

It feels uncharitable to say he’s running out of patience with Clint. 

When they found him, he was rough and undisciplined, in need of some serious direction. Fury had taken a chance on him and he’d made out good. The title of Specialist was well deserved and hard earned, Phil had never seen his equal in the field. Having put so much time into helping him overcome his demons it was hard to watch him attempt to drag them out to fight every time he was out of his comfort zone. Phil can see himself checking into a hotel one day to find Clint already there, bleeding and broken. Different versions of that story have already played out for them countless times in countless countries, more assignments than he cares to remember. 

He sits down heavily at his desk and flips open the top file with his pen.

>   
> 
> 
> Specialist: Barton, Clint  
> Disciplinary action report file: GDS39900.

> He sighs and flips it shut again. Clint doesn’t need disciplining, he needs _Well what? Are you gonna fix him?_

Truth is, he really doesn’t know what Clint needs. He had thought it might be Natasha, and truthfully she had curbed his behaviour more than anyone else in the time she has been with the division. Now there seems to be exactly two people he answers to, even Fury usually defers matters to him where Clint is concerned. He pulls his chair into the desk and sits up straighter, laying the pen neatly on the desk beside the file. 

Looking back it occurs to Phil that the two key figures in Clint’s life, himself and Natasha were both chosen by Clint himself. He is reacting surprisingly well to Steve’s leadership which is encouraging, likes to provoke Stark - but then they all do, and seems to have enormous respect for Bruce. Thor, with his off kilter hormones and strange alien scent is still much of an unknown element, for all of them. 

He pulls up Clint’s personnel file on the single monitor. There’s precious little information in it, but Phil knows what it contains from memory. He scrolls down to the classification field and finds the little telltale sign that has haunted their partnership. It sums up Clint Barton in one tiny symbol. 

Classification: Beta **?**

He shakes his head. This file hasn’t given him any answers in ten years, it’s not going to start making sense now. 

Harker’s problem comes back to him. The trouble with finding a stable mix in such an isolated environment often comes down to personalities and tempers. They’re in the sticks out here with the guys who hit red zone just that little bit easier, the ones who don’t quite fit in anywhere else. Harker must have medical staff that know their business. Perhaps there might be someone he can talk to, shine a new perspective on the situation. The doctors back home are all too familiar with Clint, and coloured with opinions based on his non-existent ability to cope with being a patient. Perhaps someone who has never attempted to treat him would be able to look at things objectively.

He checks the time, there’s no natural light from the windows now, he should turn in. He powers down the computer and rubs his temples. He’ll check in with the doctor in the morning. 

~*~

The walk back through the complex takes Clint out onto the rickety galvanised walkway outside the mess hall. He stands in the wind and looks up. He isn’t one for vertigo, since he spends a considerable amount of time perched in precarious nests wherever he can get a good line of sight. Still, the mountain is impressive and it rises upwards to a dizzying height. There are eagles circling above the complex, watching below. 

The wind is powerful this high up, it buffets him and brings his breath up short. It’s a thrill, knowing if he just took a little more risk, maybe leaned out over the railings it could take him entirely, dropping him bodily onto the cliff side. He grips the rail all the same; ice cold steel biting his palm. 

He can only take so much before his teeth set chattering however, and he turns to edge along the walkway to the nearest door. It leads back into the circular corridor that rings the complex. It’s warmer inside, but only because of the lack of wind. 

He rubs his cheeks to get the blood flowing back into his face and flexes his palm to encourage feeling. A woman in an engineer’s jumpsuit walks by him and looks at him curiously as he stamps his feet. He smiles apologetically and she moves on, looking back over her shoulder as she reaches the door. He knows he comes across as a tourist and there’s only ever one reaction to that. _What did you do to wind up here?_ It’s not as bad for him as it is for some. Under different circumstances - perhaps if he’d have developed less field applicable skills - he might even have requested this posting, especially if Green and Burns were the worst it had to offer. 

He wanders the complex for a couple of hours, winding up camped out at the back of the common room where two agents have crashed out with the TV on. He watches the news and attempts to fill in someone’s abandoned crossword. Vocabulary isn’t his forte, that’s much more Coulson’s area. 

By the time he makes it back to bed the other inhabitants of the room are dead to the world. He doesn’t recognise any of them. The two on the far wall have fallen asleep facing each other. A guy and a girl, fingers entwined across the gap. He sniffs as he passes them, two Betas. That’s becoming more usual these days, good for them. Their scent is pervasive, pleasant and identical. They are clearly mated. He wonders why they weren’t offered a room but dismisses the notion, not everyone likes to declare the particulars of their life. He can get behind that. He hopes they didn’t have to choose this posting as their honeymoon. 

He sinks down onto the cot and winces as it creaks. He checks, but no one stirs. He pulls the paperback out of the cabinet and sets it on top of the little unit, bending to reach for his wash bag. There is a spike of anger when he realises someone has stolen his StarkPad, but it runs cold when he realises what else is missing, his spine freezes and time seems to stop. 

The pills are gone too. 

~*~


	4. Chapter 4

Phil doesn’t make it down to medical for a few days. It’s a half baked notion that just seems to keep getting pushed down his agenda. He hits his stride with the caseload he flew out with and doesn’t often come up for air. 

He doesn’t see Clint either. Harker has him up on the O&M floor, monitoring live feeds and data stacks for abnormalities. There’s little Hawkeye can’t see and Phil’s pleased he’s at least being productive. He’s had no complaints or ‘quiet words’ since Clint was assigned a desk so he can but assume his wayward agent is keeping his promises. 

He has taken to wearing his glasses again in this office, the lights are too bright, too naked and they strain his eyes. The monitor is also pretty second rate, blurry at the edges. He takes them off and folds them before placing them on top of the remaining files. Deciding that a walk would clear his head he winds the scarf around his neck that has become his compromise against the chill and steps out into the corridor. 

Almost immediately he’s hit with a sense of tension. His attention snaps back and forth along the two paths away from his office. To the left the sensation is definitely thicker. He strides in that direction, loosening his jacket to free his gun.

There are two agents sizing up against each other in the doorway to the common room. A woman and a skinny guy who matches her in height. They are arguing, spitting insults and glaring. It’s the woman who breaks first, her fist slicing up to catch the guy on the jaw, except it doesn’t connect. Her hand hits Phil’s and he holds her there, inches from the guys face. 

“Who the fuck are you!?” The guy snaps, as though Phil hadn’t just saved him from a cracked jaw. 

The woman is wearing the dark grey jumpsuit that signifies her as a permanently posted member of the engineering team. The guy is in a black SHIELD fleece, a transfer, probably newly posted. They both reek of adrenaline, the guy more so, he’s drenched in sweat, eyes glazed and attention cracking. 

“My name is Agent Phil Coulson, you are?” 

“What the fuck is it to you?” The guy grates through gritted teeth. There’s an edge of hysteria in it, spicing his blood with courage. He edges round, looks like maybe he’s gonna take a swing at Phil instead. 

He is still gripping the woman’s hand, she hasn’t moved, she can obviously tell what he is. She was likely responding to the guy’s shocking attitude but she doesn’t look like she’s high the same way he does. He lets go and she falls back a little wary, but when she moves to stand behind Coulson he knows she’s made the right call, she’ll back him up if he needs it. He won’t. 

“I asked you a question!” The guy says and Phil knows he doesn’t have a choice. He despises having to do it, but there’s something else going on here, the agent has tension rolling off him in waves and it smells chemical, nothing that masks the fact he’s a Beta though. Just like the woman in the doorway the urge to project confidence is leaking out of his every pore. He’s not in his right mind. Phil rolls his shoulders and lets go of his guard. 

The guy fights it for a moment, edging close to red zone when he realises what Phil’s doing. But he’s unhinged and Phil doesn’t think he could berserk even if he wanted to in his current state, not without collapsing. The fight literally falls off the guy as Phil’s assertion of authority washes over him. He drops his fists and sways on his feet. 

Phil has a grip on his fleece’s collar in seconds. Hauling him forward to stand upright. 

“You need to report to Harker before I do Agent.” He says over his shoulder. The woman nods once and marches off down the hallway. The hapless junkie in his grip goes willingly as Phil stalks off in the direction of the medibay. Sometimes he fucking hates being an Alpha. 

~*~ 

Things are not unravelling for Clint which is more than a relief. He hasn’t been off the pills for nearly four years and even that was bridged by a syringe in a dark alley, hardly above board stuff but it had done the trick. He was without either now and as much as he had expected for it to fall down around his ears, it just..hadn’t. 

He feels fine, keeping his head down, working at his assigned station diligently and with almost as much commitment as in the field. He tries not to garner anyone’s attention since as good as it’s working out so far he honestly doesn’t know how long it will last or what symptoms might surface. So he avoids conversation and plays the loner card, albeit a little heavy-handedly. So far everyone else on the floor is leaving him to it. 

It’s difficult to keep paranoia at bay though, he can’t make out the line between true sense and his woefully overactive imagination when he walks past someone’s desk and they lift their head to watch him. He tells himself it’s just that not much else goes on up here, so people welcome any distraction they can get, but there’s always a small voice in his head _Can they smell it on you? Are you presenting?_

He out and out avoids eating in the mess hall. He claims lack of appetite at meal times and raids the kitchen after hours. There’s a spring lock on the store room that takes less than thirty seconds to pick. He crouches in between the shelves and raids boxes of granola bars and tubs of preserved fruit in syrup. He’s longing for something hot but he can wait until they’re home, he’s endured worse, far worse. 

Green and Burns - the idiots from the mess hall - are mostly absent, they eat with the rest of the staff and are stationed at the defence control on the outer arm of the complex. Once or twice they’ve caught him in the hallway, crowding him against the wall like high school bullies and making idle and vague threats. He’s confident they won’t make any kind of move, and if they did, he knows he could best them. A little discrete digging revealed their background. They’re permanent postings, lacking field experience. Most likely they’re SHIELD’s charity cases, keep them productive out here, make them feel important, it’ll keep them off the streets and out of the gangs. Turns out plenty of people were willing to gripe about them with only the mildest, apparently disinterested prodding from Clint at the vending machine. Natasha would be proud. 

The first wave of nausea hits him as he’s reaching the top of the stairs to the observation deck. He only has to report into Harker and sign off for the day and he can retreat to his cot, feign sleep while he battles the stomach churning cramps. 

Harker looks at him oddly as he’s dismissed. He knows he must look like a wreck, but there’s nothing he can do about it here. He tries to keep a reasonable distance from his superior without looking like a madman or just plain rude. It only serves to make him look ill, apparently. 

“Jesus Barton you look terrible. You should get down to medical.” 

_Should, should. That’s not an order. ___

He nods, and reaches out to take the InfoPad that Harker is holding out for him. 

“Take this down to your boss would you? He might find these stats interesting.” 

Clint nods, and hugs the pad to his chest. He tries not to think about his missing StarkPad and the pills, he hasn’t seen hide nor hair of either. 

He has to stop a couple of times of the way down to Coulson’s office leaning heavily against a wall for support as another wave passes. A Beta with a scar running across his face stops to watch him push himself to his feet again. An odd expression passes over him before Clint waves him off and claims he’s on his way to medical. He can’t shake the sensation as he turns the handle to the office, the Beta had sniffed deliberately. 

Coulson isn’t in his office so Clint drops the pad on the desk and lurches out towards his bed, he sinks gratefully down onto the mattress and waits for the pain to pass. 

~*~


	5. Chapter 5

The doctor, it turns out, is a smartly dressed woman in her fifties with a dry sense of humour and a sure hand. Phil can’t help but appreciate the way she handles the junkie as soon as he walks in, delinquent agent dragging his feet behind him. 

“You find him like this?” She says, eyeing up the Beta’s condition. She guides him to a bed and places a firm hand on his shoulder. He sinks down without question. Phil doesn’t even need to rely on his senses to tell she’s an Alpha. 

He nods, and explains the situation. It makes her sigh and she wraps a line around his arm, sensors feeding her information on blood pressure and heart rate. She locates a vein and draws blood, swift and efficient. 

“Well then, lets see what you’re on.” 

“Gyropanzamine, KPGi, Something..” The guy says weakly. 

“Yeah, don’t bother.” She says, “I’ve had enough cocktails in here to know I can only rely on my own results.” 

She motions at Phil to stand a little to the left as she drops a sample into a machine against the wall. It spins up and whirrs. 

“Do you get a lot of this?” Phil says, a little out of his depth. He’d been posted here numerous times, but there had never been anything like it before. At least, not that he saw. 

“Sometimes. It seems to come in rashes for some reason.” She glances up at the machine beeps, but it’s just moving on to the counter cycle. “We’re far from civilisation here Agent Coulson, some of these operatives are assigned here after deep cover. Well, after they didn’t make the transition back to their old lives too well. Others are just maladjusted. Loose canons that can’t stop looking for a way to either calm their hair-trigger reflexes or give them an edge.” 

Phil can see at least two other beds occupied from where he is, there’s five more empty in this room alone. A nurse is busying himself at the back, blue scrubs matching the curtains around one of the beds. 

“You ever wonder why we have such a large medical facility here?” Dr Matthews continues. “We only have sixty seven permanent staff.” 

“Jesus,” Phil breathes. “I had no idea.. this is practically a rehab facility.” 

There’s a load groan from one of the beds and the doctor inclines her head towards it. “Take Kyle over there for example. He’s here on a six month posting, three months in. He’s a hypochondriac at best, forever begging for meds he doesn’t need. He’ll take anything he can find.” 

The guy groans again and Phil frowns. “What’s wrong with him now?”

“He took Supracedamine. An unknown dose, Genius.” 

Phil’s never heard of it, he shakes his head and shrugs when she looks his way. 

“It’s an Omega suppressant, masks scent and represses hormones. It’s pretty black market, only legally prescribed for a handful of glandular conditions. They call them canaries on the street. Long term, it’s effects have never been tested. Most buy it to halt hormonal changes, stall biological cycles, that kind of thing.”

Phil frowns and takes the bottle she hands him. There are a few yellow pills rattling around in the bottom. “He’s an Omega?”

“Nope.” 

“What?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. I hate to think what hell that stuff is wreaking on his system right now, it’s not designed to work with Beta physiology. It’s not going to do any permanent damage of course, but it doesn’t sound comfortable in the meantime.”

“He’s three months in on this posting and he takes it now?” Phil says, working around a point. It doesn’t taste good in his mouth. “He didn’t bring it, so where did he get it?”

“That’s the million dollar question isn’t it.” Dr Matthews says. “My bet is, we’ve got an Omega on site somewhere, without their meds.”

Phil’s out of the medibay like a shot. He needs to get to Harker, warn him to keep any potentially unstable Betas under curfew until they’ve tracked the Omega down. Now he knows there’s an Omega here the scent is unmistakable albeit maddeningly faint. It’s definately too weak to track to its source but if the suppressants are wearing off it’s only going to get stronger. If he can only sense it now so faintly the Betas likely won’t have picked up on it yet, but if they were with the Omega in person..

He swings by his office to grab his overcoat on the way up to Harker. He knows someone has been in here as soon as he opens the door. There’s an InfoPad lying on his desk that’s new and the unfamiliar atmosphere in the room begins to give rise to a new suspicion. He picks it up with shaking hands and tuns it over. Clint left it here, his scent is all over it, along with something sharper, brighter. 

_Fuck._

~*~

Clint can’t stay still. He tries desperately to relax, dipping into the same head space he works from in the field. It’s calming but does nothing to ease the burning under his skin. It feels like his chest is on fire. 

The nausea has passed now but fear grips Clint’s heart as he realises what it’s giving way to. He has to get out, to hide, else he’s going to put people in danger and ruin everything he worked to build. 

He grabs his wash-bag, hugging it to him as he staggers from the empty room, seeking somewhere closed in and isolated where he can wait this out. He tries to recall the blueprints, but he only studied the escape routes, air ducts. He knows precisely what will happen if he enters those and the ventilation system wafts his scent around the complex without warning. 

He hears footsteps on the steel coming his way and he dives through the nearest door. He falls to his knees and drops the bags as a wash of heat overcomes him, only managing to crawl forwards a few paces away from the door. He’s vaguely aware of a boardroom table, chair legs.

He flinches as the door is flung open and two figures enter, sniffing the air. 

“Holy fuck, it’s strong in here.” A voice says and Clint’s blood runs cold. 

“Come out little bird, we’ll protect you.” Another says, and it’s all Clint can do not to obey. 

He watches as two pairs of feet stalk around the room, getting closer. His nerve nearly gives out when he realises who has him cornered. 

It’s Green and Burns. 

~*~


	6. Chapter 6

There’s no sign of Clint in his room. There’s a lone agent engrossed in a novel, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed anything unusual. He looks up briefly when Phil enters, curious. 

“Have you seen Barton?” 

“Who?” 

Phil waves him off, he’s well aware that Clint hasn’t been going out of his way to make friends here. Only now he has some idea as to why. He stands for a moment outside the door, considering. If Clint is, as he suspects, suffering from the effects of the suppressants wearing off, he’ll be looking for somewhere to hide. His eyes flick up towards the ventilation ducts but he dismisses it almost instantly. Clint’s not stupid for all that he apparently lacks common sense sometimes. 

He grabs a passing officer, a young woman with red hair. He stares at him wide eyed and fearful. He knows that he’s not keeping a lid on his Alpha presence and that he’s probably breaking every regulation going but he doesn’t have time to care. She stammers a reply to his growling question and he lets her arm go. She flattens herself against the wall in an effort to stay out of his way. 

Left tracks around the outside edge of the building, towards the obs decks and further down, the mess hall. The traffic is higher than the other end of the complex, towards the training suites so he swings right, knowing Clint will be wanting to stay away from others. Of course, if he’s headed past the range and the gym, there’s a good chance he’s going to come up against someone stronger than he is. Phil’s pace picks up a notch. 

~*~

It feels like there’s no air left in the room. Clint shivers under the desk, trying to get a handle on his thoughts. There’s a grating noise as Green pulls a chair out from under the nearby table. 

“You’re in here somewhere little bird.” Green says, it’s playful, almost hypnotic, but for all that it’s attractive there’s something off about the whole situation. Clint roots himself in place and concentrates on slowing his breathing. 

He can see Green’s boots through the gap cut for computer wiring. He’s shuffling about, looking in unlikely places and Clint realises his scent must be fogging their senses, their reason. It’s a bad sign, it means it’s coming on bad, the canaries have clearly been fucking with his hormones too much. 

He realises a second too late that he’s been concentrating too hard on Green. Burns grabs him by the collar and hauls him bodily out from under the desk.

“Ha! Found you!” He says, triumphant. 

“Ha! Fuck, look..it’s the little shit on transfer from the Big Apple.” Green says. He licks his lips, and sneers. 

With nothing between them and no drugs in his system to dampen his sense Clint gets a lungful of what had been putting him so on edge. 

“Shit, you’re..you’re fucking Betas!” He spits out. He’s repulsed, his body twisting almost of it’s own accord out of Burns’ grip. He drops to a crouch and rolls out of Green’s reach as they both make a grab for him. They’re between him and the door still, something he knows he’s going to have to work very hard to remedy. 

“You let him go man, that’s not cool.” Green says under his breath. 

“Fuck you Joel, you wouldn’t have done any better.” 

Clint winches as a stabbing pain shoots through his side and a wave of something powerful hits his mind. He knows he’s on the verge of falling into heat, he’s not sure if he’s going to be able to get away from them if that happens. 

“Just give in little bird. We might be Betas but I can make it real good for you” Burns croons, earning him a punch on the arm from Green. 

The two of them stop and stare at each other for a second, and Clint can see the moment as it passes between them. _Fight this out or work together.._ Neither option is great, as hormone addled as they are they could do real damage to themselves, or Clint. 

He tries to remember the last time this had happened, but it was so long ago, a different lifetime. He doesn’t know how to curb it, already he can feel his sense of resistance cracking at the edges. He wants to believe that he’s fight tooth and nail to avoid being mounted by these idiots, but he’s not sure. He doesn’t want to risk it. 

The moment snaps like taught elastic, they make a move but it’s not for each other, it’s for him. Working together they’re stronger and have more limbs than him. Green grabs for his ankle and catches it, while Clint swings his fist at Burns’ face. Green senses the motion and tugs on Clint’s leg, dragging him along the floor and sending his fist whistling through the air inches from its target. Clint grins wickedly, it’s brought Green much closer and he kicks downward with he free leg, feeling the satisfying crack as he connects his boot with Green’s kneecap. 

“I’m no little bird dickwad.” He grins, “I’m a fucking Hawk.” 

Burns growls and launches himself at Clint, twisting his arms cruelly behind his back and pinning him to the floor. Green grunts as he inspects his knee, he’s bending it fine, so Clint suspects he hasn’t managed to break it. Pity. 

He struggles in Burns’ grip. The two of them might have less than a soup spoon of braincells to share but they’re stronger than they look. For all that he’s been training with Steve, he doesn’t have the muscle to overpower them, the Supracedamine can only do so much. He tries to still, feeling along his body when Burns has in in a hold, looking for where his grip is weakest. Another wave of heat hits him, no pain this time, only arousal, unbidden. He knows they notice it too and its certain he won’t be able to hold them off or deter them much longer. He’s almost relieved when Green draws his fist back and smacks him in the jaw. The pain explodes behind his eyes, clearing his thoughts and pushing back the fire. He thrashes in Burns’ hold, gritting his teeth when the back of his skull collides sharply with his captor’s face. He smells blood and nearly fights free when Burns puts a hand to his nose. 

“You might not be a little bird,” Green grins, there’s malice there now, intent. “But Hawks get tethered.” He reaches out towards the nearest computer, ripping cables from the sockets, winding one around his hand. He stands to reach for a pack of cable ties that has been abandoned near one of the filing cabinets. 

Clint feels his whole body preparing for the heat, it’s coming on dizzyingly fast. Burns’ hands on his skin feel like hot coals. He shakes his head to clear it, but the room only sways. 

“He’s got it bad.” He hears Burns say, one of them laughs. “We’ll help with that, don’t worry.” 

“What did..” Green says. He doesn’t finish the question. Clint’s suddenly aware of a presence in the room like tight pressure as the door flies open. Green tilts forward forcefully into the desk, collapsing out cold when he hits it face first. Burns’ grip on him is gone in an instant, the Beta’s weight lifting from his back in one smooth motion. Someone growls, low and full of protective authority. Clint can’t raise his head to meet it, shame and guilt washing over him alongside floods and floods of _need_

Coulson’s hands on him are cooling, like fresh water. He falls into them willingly. 

~*~


	7. Chapter 7

Coulson cannot thank his stars enough that only two Betas had found Clint. He’s not sure he could have contained a riot on his own. He drags Barton’s body closer to his as he half hauls, half carries him back to the tiny private room. Once there he lets him fall bodily onto the bed and grabs his phone from his pocket. He taps out a text message to Harker, the barest explanation promising a more complete report in due course. As a precaution he also sends a message to Dr Matthews, alerting her to the two injured Betas and asking for her help. 

He puts the phone down and gives in to the inevitable, letting himself take stock of the situation. Clint has crawled halfway up the bed, hugging his knees to his chest. He’s shivering, skin pale and waxy. Phil can see by the set of his shoulder that’s he’s still trying to deal with this alone, just like everything else. 

“Jesus Clint,” he breathes, staying as far away as possible in the cramped space. “How long?”

Clint gulps in a few breaths, steeling himself for any consequences. “Since I was twelve.” 

Phil wishes he could sit down. The effects of suppressing cycles are not well documented since most Omegas and the few Betas who experience them don’t often try. From his limited knowledge Phil knows Doctors certainly don’t recommend it. Twenty odd years plus? Holy cow, that’s gotta seriously mess someone’s system up. 

He’s been around a few Omegas in heat in his time, once he’d even claimed one. She had been feisty, not given to subservience like the Pure Status lobbyists. Not that there were so many of those around these days but twenty years ago they’d held considerable sway in the community. Their relationship hadn’t worked out, he couldn’t give her everything she needed, which was mostly answers and a mate with a nine to five job. 

Apart from Dana he’d only coupled during brief encounters. A few interested Betas, a couple of Omegas looking to ease the urgency their heat brought them without strings attached. Even Ferris; another Alpha, and hadn’t that been fun. He’d given in to peculiar desires that night, putting it down to whatever they were smoking and the fact that ‘everyone experiments in college’. 

Even so, having pressed up against plenty of Omegas in and out of heat, intentionally or otherwise, their scent was _nothing_ compared to what was rolling off Clint right now. 

There’s a sharp knock at the door and Phil cracks it open, breathing a sigh of relief when Dr Matthews raises an eyebrow at him. He opens the door fully and she whistles. 

“That’s some serious pheromones you’re kicking off there Agent.” She says. She shuts the door behind her with her hip and lifts a medical case onto the bed beside Clint.

“He’s been suppressing since he was twelve.” Phil says, desperate to help. 

Dr Matthew’s mouth draws into a thin line. “The Supracedamine was yours then?” 

Clint nods and moans quietly when she sets a hand on his arm to roll up his sleeve. 

“I don’t know what that will have done to your development.” She says, it sounds clinical, too harsh but Clint shrugs. “It does explain your size though, you’re hardly a sapling.” 

She taps a syringe of clear liquid and injects Clint. It doesn’t have any immediate effect that Phil can sense but he’s not an expert. 

“That will combat some of the more unpleasant symptoms of coming off suppressants. I don’t know too much about Supracedamine but presumably you’ve had pain, nausea?” Clint nods. “Then that should ease off now. Other than that..” 

“You’re gonna make me go through it aren’t you.” Clint says, his voice cracks a little and Phil frowns. 

“I don’t recommend you suppress this, or indeed any other heat episodes. Now that this has started it needs to play out, you don’t have much of a choice here.” 

She turns to Phil and he sets his shoulders, prepared for a battle. “He is my responsibility, I will take care of him here.” 

“Good.” 

“You don’t want him down in medical?” 

“No, I have Betas down there coming off god knows what self-inflicted cocktails and unauthorised HRT, I’d rather not add his pheromones into the mix, but I will take the risk if you can’t handle it.”

Clint visibly tenses and Phil wants to lay a hand on his shoulder, except that he doesn’t know how much that would help. “No,” he says, “thank you. Like I said, I’ll take care of him here.” 

The doctor packs her kit up and presses two packs of foil blisters into Phil’s hand. “Painkillers every four hours, the others are for sleep if he needs it, you know where I’ll be.” She pushes her way out of the door and Phil pretends not to notice the way she takes a couple of hard lungfuls of fresh air when she gets out into the corridor. 

~*~

The doctor’s scent is still in the room minutes after she’s left. It is gradually overcome by Phil’s more masculine, more immediate one however. Its effect is calming, steadying and Clint finds he’s not nearly as paranoid in here with Coulson as he was wandering the complex alone. 

“Thank you.” He says, his voice is sure, more steady than he had expected. 

Coulson doesn’t answer, just pulls the stool out from the bathroom and perches on it it watch Clint. 

The fire in his belly is quiescent for now. It’s a slow burn, whatever the doctor gave him it’s taken the edge off the discomfort and Clint finds he can turn to look his boss in the face without gut wrenching pain or wanting to throw up with shame and guilt. _You lied…lied and cheated_

He has another problem to deal with instead, can’t stop looking at the way Coulson-the-Alpha moves, the way his eyes are watching him right back. He realises with a sense of finality that he might actually have been looking for this on some level ever since they first started working directly together. 

The realisation sends a jolt of desire down his spine and he feels himself fully harden. It’s been threatening ever since he relaxed in here, ever since the doctor gave him the shot. He suspects there was a touch of sedative in whatever it was. He shifts uncomfortably, not willing to ask for help. 

“You ok?” Coulson says, there’s not much thought behind the question which is unusual. Clint doesn’t know how he’d have asked either so he just laughs. 

“You can’t tell me I look alright.” 

“No, but I thought maybe you could check in, give me a status update.”

Typical of Coulson to treat this like some kind of debrief. His mind flicks back to Sudan, a filthy floor and a dead man, Coulson pulling him upright for the first time in four days. His bindings had cut deep but Coulson’s hands were gentle, as cool then as they are now. He’d had the foresight to buy a shot of bluebird before they left, no come down from the Supracedamine canaries then, just pure white-hot attitude. There was still a line in his file, underlined: _Prone to risk taking_. Too fucking right. 

“A status update? Can’t stop shaking Sir, feels like someone’s lit a fire under my ass.” 

“That’s not too different for usual Agent.” Coulson says. There’s no hint of mirth in his voice, no laugh, but Clint can see the tiny smile at the edges of him. He smiles back grudgingly. 

“Yes Sir, but it might just be literal this time, I..” He doesn’t actually know how to describe this, the sensations are shifting every second, flooding and receding like a tide. “I need..” 

“What?” Phil says after a pause. Clint realises he never finished. He needs touch, wants touch. Coulson isn’t even attempting to hide his Alpha presence in here and even if he was it’s been his room long enough for Clint to register his scent on every surface, every inch in here. He’s more than overwhelmed, truth is, it smells like home. 

Coulson shifts over to his bed, sitting near to where Clint has balled up on his side. He reaches out a steady hand to Clint’s shoulder and it’s all Clint can do not to just roll onto his belly. 

“You.” Clint says finally. “Sorry Sir.” 

~*~


	8. Chapter 8

Phil often used to fantasise about the day Clint would apologise to him and mean it. He’d picture them both standing in the wreckage of yet another enemy base or the abandoned shell of a warehouse and Clint would turn to him with that dopey grin, scratch his head and say “Sorry Sir.” 

He didn’t expect it to be like this. He lets his hand rest on Clint’s shoulder and rubs a slow circle. 

“Christ, you’ve got nothing to apologise for here.” 

“I put myself and this base at risk.” 

“OK, well, apart from that.” 

He chalks it up to yet another thing he’s let Clint get away with. _That’s gonna stop for one._

A rush of possessiveness floods through his system. It’s initially in response to the heat pheromones, he can sense enough to know that much, but there’s something else there too. This is _his_ agent, his responsibility, Clint’s always been his, ever since he first relented and called him ‘Sir’. It took two years for the sarcasm to fall out of that title and Phil feels like he earned every minute. 

He realises the sooner they face this, accept what has grown through the cement cracks of their respective walls then the sooner they can move on and build something new. He rubs his thumb into Clint’s bicep and feels him relax a little. He leans in close and breathes deep, letting Clint’s scent fill his senses. 

“Alright.” He says shakily, and lets go. 

He feels the rise of emotion swell up through him, filling every pore with assurance and confidence. He stands briefly to lock the door and turns to face the bed. 

Clint is struggling to let go as he just did. He knows Clint can sense the change in presence, his demeanour is shifting, trying to keep up. It’s only his own stubbornness getting in the way. Phil kneels beside the bed and brushes Clint’s hair out of his face. 

“I got you.” He says, “If you want this, just let go.” He doesn’t put any force into it, although he knows he could but he knows the instant that Clint drops anyway. It’s like someone releasing a valve, suddenly all the resistance has gone out of the room. Well, not quite, there’s something new and it tastes like rebellion. 

“If _you_ want this.” Clint says, his voice low and on the edge of dangerous. “You gotta earn it.” 

Phil wonders briefly what he’s spent the last ten years doing, but he can feel the connection between them crackling like static and he isn’t going to back down from a challenge, not now his inner Alpha has come out to play. 

“Have it your way.” He growls and Clint grins, wicked and filthy. 

They don’t have much room, just the bed and about the same amount of floor space, but Phil once fought two terrorists in the bathroom of a 747 during a transatlantic flight, he’s got this. It feels odd to be sparring an Omega, but he reminds himself that for over twenty years Clint has been living as a Beta. 

He doesn’t have a chance to duck out of the way when Clint launches himself from the bed, directly at him. Instead he takes Clint’s weight and rolls with it, slamming Clint into the wall as they turn. He hears the rush of breath as Clint is winded but he knows his opponent well enough to tell that won’t slow him down in the slightest. Clint nearly catches him when he whips his head back, but Phil ducks to the side, sliding his hand into Clint’s hair and yanking down hard. It’s satisfying to see Clint sink to his knees but he can’t revel in it with Clint’s hands still free. He relinquishes his grip and works to pull Clint into a hold on the floor. The two of them struggle for several minutes, Phil unable at first to gain the upper hand, but the effect of withdrawal and the shot Dr Matthews gave Clint are taking their toll, he can feel that he’s not at full strength. 

It’s really only a matter of endurance, he has only to push hard down on Clint’s shoulders when he eventually tries to stagger upright and keep his hands pinned behind his back. When he’s certain Clint won’t try to twist out of his hold Phil kneels behind him, briefly he drags his face over Clint’s skin, scenting rough and letting it overwhelm him. He lowers his mouth to the tendons at the back of Clint’s neck and bites down, hard.

~*~

When Clint feels teeth most of the fight drains right out of him. His shoulders drop in a naturally submissive gesture that feels three sizes too small for him and he whimpers. Coulson orders him to his feet and he scrambles to obey, mind already fizzing with white space where he’s relinquishing his resistance. 

Coulson’s hands are sure when he strips Clint of first his shirt, then his belt and pants, leaving him shivering from more than just cool air on his skin. He notices, distracted, that his bare feet aren’t resting on cold metal but that at some point after he arrived on base Coulson put a small bath mat down. 

“Lay down.” Coulson says firmly and Clint clambers onto the bed. There’s warm wetness between his thighs where his body is crying out for relief. He whimpers again and squirms. 

“Enough of that.” Coulson says, and Clint feels him bring his legs together, sliding his boxers off. “We’ll get there, I know you can be more patient than that.” 

Clint can, he really can. He squeezes his eyes shut and evens out his breathing, arching his back against the scratch of the sheets that’s almost too much for his over sensitive skin. Coulson lets him relax like that, doesn’t move until Clint’s lying flat on the bed. His chest rises and falls deeply as he breathes in Coulson’s scent. 

“Good boy.” Coulson murmurs and Clint almost snaps back something acidly sarcastic but he can’t find the words. Only warmth and pride at the praise he earned is on his tongue. 

There’s a snap of a bottle cap and for a moment Clint is confused, he cracks open one eye and watches as Coulson squeezes moisturising lotion onto one palm, rubbing his hands together to coat them. He takes one of Clint’s feet in his hands and begins to rub the tension from the tendons. He works swiftly, paying individual attention to each toe and joint. When he’s done with the foot he moves on to the ankle and the calf, up to Clint’s thigh and back down the other side. Whenever he needs it he adds more lotion. He doesn’t speak and Clint doesn’t want him to. As each minute ticks by Clint can feel a little more of the anxious tension and urgency fall away until when finally done with both legs Coulson moves on to Clint’s arms, starting with the pinkie finger on his left hand. 

It could be just a few minutes or whole hours by the time it’s over. Coulson is regarding him with something like wary concentration. Clint opens his mouth to speak but only a cracked groan comes out. 

“Don’t speak unless you need to.” Coulson says and Clint nods his agreement. 

Coulson stands, undoing his tie and laying it over the back of the chair, swiftly followed by his neatly folded shirt and jacket. The suit pants are next and identical socks. Clint knows without looking at the puddle of clothing on the floor that his own don’t match. 

He blinks slowly, Phil Coulson is not a well muscled guy, not that Clint has ever found that particularly attractive. Instead he’s lean and well defined, years of active duty and SHIELD training having left him frighteningly quick on his feet and full of surprises. There’s the odd scar on his skin, under the cuffs and tie, nothing Clint can’t match with his own horrors. 

Coulson nudges Clint’s knees apart and kneels between them, his cock, proud and full stands out against the pale skin of his stomach. It makes Clint’s mouth water. 

“I will teach you to please me.” He says softly and Clint nods. “But this is more pressing.” 

Clint’s head rolls back as soon as he feels Coulson’s fingers slide over the sensitive skin under his balls. He’s hard, but not uncomfortably so and for the moment Coulson is ignoring it. Instead his long fingers stroke and caress against him, gathering wetness and building sensation. Clint moans, unable to help the noise and Coulson laughs. 

“Alright, lets stop testing your patience then.” 

The first finger is a smooth motion, eased by Clint’s body’s own state of receptiveness. The second is delicious, a slow stretch and pull where he has to accommodate the way Coulson is moving. He gasps when a third is added, having not stretched himself that way for months. He lets himself adjust, and then its _there_ and he’s whimpering, needing more. 

Coulson murmurs encouragements, talking mostly nonsense under his breath, it acts like an anchor for Clint, who feels like he’s in danger of simply floating away. 

“I hope you’re going you stay with me for this Agent.” Coulson says, kneeling up and dragging Clint towards him by the hips. 

“Yes Sir.” Clint croaks, he grins his own encouragement, daring Coulson to do his worst. 

It’s been years since he allowed someone to take him this way and he’s a little unprepared for how overwhelming the sensations are. It’s amplified a thousandfold by the heat state and when Coulson pushes home there’s not just the physical. He can only sense Coulson now, everywhere is him. 

“You’re mine.” Coulson growls and Clint can only nod frantically in response. It might have taken them ten years to mate, but in essence he’s only ever belonged to one man. 

Coulson puts a lot of power behind his thrusts, stretching minutes into delicious torture, slamming repeatedly into Clint, making him gasp and push back. It’s messy, uncoordinated, so very unlike their usual partnership than Clint grunts in dissatisfaction, needing more, needing to be _overcome_

“I hear you.” Coulson says, though Clint didn’t utter a word. Clint feels the shock of separation when Coulson withdraws but its fleeting, just as long as it takes for Coulson to flip him over, guiding him roughly onto his hands and knees. 

When Coulson enters him again it’s a ragged and desperate sensation. Coulson can reach deeper now, his thrusts pressing right into the centre of Clint’s being. He braces himself against the bed and loses all sense of time as he’s taken. 

He barely registers it when he comes, gasping and bucking as Coulson holds him - vice-like - still. Then when Coulson resumes, there’s a rough edge of possession to the act. He should feel too sore, too sensitive to continue but he lets his body take over, hormones smoothing over the normal reactions. In truth he has never done this during a heat, the last one he encountered was before his teens. 

He senses Coulson’s climax before it hits them both like a tidal wave. He gasps desperately as he comes again unexpectedly, in sympathetic tandem with the Alpha who’s claiming him, and then theres a moment of impossible pressure as he feels Coulson begin to swell. He tries not to panic, trusting Coulson to know what he’s doing. 

“Don’t panic, it’s OK, you’re good, so good.” Coulson is whispering and Clint begins to relax, the Alpha presence quieting his Omega instincts. He pants quickly, adjusting to the stretch and finally, when he begins to think there’s no way he can take more it’s over. The two of the settle against each other, sated for now. 

Coulson presses a firm arm around his chest and guides them to lie down, spooning. They won’t be moving for a while and Clint is content to drift in the endorphin haze of a successful mating. He had no idea it would feel this good, that it _could_ feel this good. 

“Coulson..” He says, though he’s not sure what he wants to say.

“Phil.” 

“Phil..” He says, tasting his bosses name on his tongue. 

“Shh.” Phil says, “Sleep.” 

Clint obeys, murmuring a quiet “yes Sir” as Phil presses a kiss to the back of his head. 

~*~


	9. Chapter 9

It’s a while before Phil can disentangle himself enough to ease his arm out from where it’s going numb under Clint’s weight. There’s a little colour returned now to Clint’s cheeks, pink spots rising where the heat is still flushing through his system.  
He feels the urge driving him to mate again welling up, and he rises from the bed to clean up and fetch a glass of water before it can take him completely. He knows if he wakes Clint there’ll be no hope of avoiding it so he’s painstakingly careful as he eases off the mattress. He’s surprised at his success, Clint is the world lightest sleeper, but he looks like a man in the grips of a healing sleep, too deep and utterly dreamless.

He washes his hands and catches sight of himself in the mirror. There’s a day’s stubble crowding his jaw and a bruise high on one cheek where one of the Betas had accidentally caught him with a back swing yesterday. 

He leans over the sink and rubs cold water onto his face. _Why couldn’t you tell?_

Ten years he’d been working with Clint, at least six of them he’d have considered them friends, of a sort. Now he knows there was a current of attraction running through their entire history, unable to surface thanks to the drugs. Can’t smell flowers when there’s perfume in the air. It feels like a failure still, he should have been able to help Clint conquer this last demon, put it in the ground for good. 

_Now’s a good time to start._

He sets the glass of water on the table next to Clint and considers his next move. If he leaves to get food Clint will panic if he wakes up to find him gone. If he lays down to wake him gently there’s a good chance neither of them will get up again, if he’s rough..Fuck it, he concludes, it’s still Clint. 

“On your feet Agent.” He barks and Clint’s upright before he’s really awake. He blinks owlishly then winces. Phil can’t imagine it’s comfortable, having just woken Clint’s body won’t have adjusted to compensates for any residual soreness. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a pack of trail mix. 

“Eat this, clean up and drink the water, I will be back in less than half an hour.” 

Clint nods, but he looks a little unsure. 

“Trust me,” Phil says and Clint relaxes a little. Yeah, if there’s anything the two of them can do, it’s trust each other. It’s sometimes about the only thing they do get right. 

He’s back in minutes, the breakfast rush not having hit the mess hall yet. He sets a tray of baked rolls and scrambled eggs on Clint’s lap and watches him devour it. Clint’s definitely looking stronger, healthier. There’s an internal rumble of approval from inside his psyche. 

He tugs off his shirt and pants, folding them once again over the back of the chair, climbing onto the bed to spoon Clint. Skin on skin feels delicious and he nips and bites at Clint’s shoulder. None too gently he pushes Clint forward onto his stomach. He lets his gaze sweep over muscle and the curve of Clint’s ass and swallows. He has to be the only Alpha who’s managed to claim an Omega that looks like a Beta. Typical of his fucked up life, that’s for sure. 

He kneels between Clint’s knees and draped himself over his back. Slowly he raises Clint’s arms above his head and pins them to the pillow by his wrists. Clint moans and turns his head. It’s such a simple thing, to dip his head, press a kiss to Clint’s mouth, but it feels like falling, like letting go of a cliff face. 

Nudging Clint’s knees apart with his own he drags his cock through the cleft of Clint’s ass. They’re both warm but Clint is inviting and the scent of his heat is heady, intoxicating. 

Phil enters him gently, allowing his body to accommodate him, but his grip on Clint’s wrists is firm, and once he’s sure Clint is comfortable he braces his knees against the bed and thrusts home. His rhythm is unrelenting, self-indulgent and powerful. Beneath him Clint gulps air and begs for more, anything that Phil has to give.

He feels Clint come twice under him before he’s though, voicing incoherent nonsense and gasping as his body pulses and contracts around Phil’s length. Phil swears and grunts as he reinforces his claim, his fingers tensing as he chases down his climax. 

He feels Clint sense it’s approach, his legs part and he arches upwards, urging Phil deeper. He drops into white noise as he comes, all static and sensual overload. But there, in the mess of blank sensation there’s a spark of something, white hot and coppery. He grasps at it and feels the shock as he touches it. Beneath him Clint gasps at the same time. 

_Oh..shit!_

~*~

_Holy..fuck!_

Clint can’t move. It’s not just that they’re now tied together until Phil relaxes enough for them to draw apart, it’s more than that. Phil rocks them onto their sides, pressing close against his back and his arm around Clint’s chest feels like a scalding brand of iron. He doesn’t _want_ to move, he couldn’t if he tried. 

Behind it, it feel like Phil is shaking..crying? No, laughing. Emotion bubbles up inside him and he answers it with his own, shoulder shaking as wetness streaks down his face and he laughs. 

“I suppose I should have seen that coming.” Phil says eventually. 

Clint laughs again, he doesn’t know what else to say.

“I mean, it’s not like I lead a normal life anyway, I might as well get bonded to an Omega who thinks he’s a Beta.” Phil continues and Clint pats his arm.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and means it. 

“That’s twice in ten years you’ve apologised to me Barton, don’t make a habit of it.”

“No Sir.” Clint says and Phil kisses his hair. “For the record, I know exactly what I am, I just choose to ignore it.” 

“Why?”

Clint has to pause before he answers, it took him a long time to figure it out himself. 

“There wasn’t anyone to take care of me when I was a kid. No one bothered to tell me what grown up boys and girls do, I was on my own. I had Barney of course, but he didn’t know any more than I did, he’s a Beta, so it was different for him anyway. By the time I knew, I had already carved a certain niche out for myself, I couldn’t risk losing it.” 

“So you suppressed.” 

“It was convenience at first, but it grew into dependence I guess. I was on the streets for a while, it wasn’t safe to go into heat there, no one having your back. Then I joined Black Fist and then SHIELD and suddenly there weren’t a whole lot of places it _was_ safe for me to go into heat. After a while, I guess I forgot I needed to.”

“That’s going to change.” 

Clint feels the wash of Alpha presence behind that statement, but he’s never been one to pay much mind to authority, it accepts it as truth more because it came from Phil than because it came from an Alpha. 

“Yes Sir.” He replies. 

~*~


	10. Chapter 10

They’re on the next transport out, unsurprisingly. Harker has expressed a direct wish that Clint not return. Phil’s OK with that. 

Clint moves into Phil’s suite in the tower. It’s big enough for two, hell, it’s big enough for three or four, but it’s exactly what they need. They tried a night apart and while Phil knows if they ever need to do it - on assignments or circumstances beyond their control - they would cope, but he’s not surprised to find a bedraggled Clint at his door the night they return. His hair sticks up in all directions at once and he reaches out for Phil as soon as there’s a crack in the door. Phil doesn’t turn him away or send him back to his own room, he couldn’t.

The team react in fairly predictable ways. Bruce shows concern over the long term effects of suppression, he emails Dr Matthews and dives into research, monitoring Clint’s blood levels for nearly two months before declaring a clean bill of health. Steve was never a Pure Status subscriber so his reaction is acceptance and an assurance that Clint can raise concerns with him at any time. It’s the same speech he made when he took over the leadership of the Avengers, so Phil doesn’t expect Clint to take him up on the offer now any more than he did then. 

Tony walks by Clint in the kitchen and sniffs. “Well how about that then.” He says, shooting a meaningful glance at Phil. Thor buys them flowers, because he’s heard that’s what you do on Earth to celebrate romance. The kitchen is full of roses for nearly a month. Phil suspects Tony keeps buying new ones and replacing them secretly. 

Their scents are identical now they’re bonded, but there’s no confusion about Clint’s classification now. Anyone with a nose can tell he’s an Omega despite his appearance, even if people do occasionally do a double take in the street. Clint has taken to winking and declaring cheerfully, “Spinach does wonders!” Like some walking health ad campaign. Phil’s tempted to tell him off whenever he does it, but he doesn’t push Clint, hasn’t in the past, doesn’t need to now. He suspects that Clint would never truly forgive him if he pushed too hard, which of course if the problem with basing relationships around the vestigial remains of prehistoric mating dynamics, humans got intelligent, they have opinions. Besides, he suspects it wouldn’t entirely work anyway. 

Natasha presses her palm to his cheek when she returns from Washington with Pepper. He smiles and she makes him coffee, it’s the closest she ever gets to public affection. 

Fury takes it surprisingly well. There’s a hint of relief during the debrief that Phil’s not sure if he meant to reveal. He understands the sentiment though, it answers a puzzle they had been trying to solve for over a decade. Phil returns to his office and opens Clint’s file on the network. 

The **?** looks out of place now, like old intel. He holds the backspace and taps out a new entry.

> > Classification: Omega, bonded.  
> Mated partner: Agent P. Coulson IDS007665

> ~*~ 


End file.
